ESPN’s College GameDay Built by The Home Depot Heads to Undefeated Kansas for the First Time

Julie McKay

October 7, 2022

College football’s premier pregame show travels to Lawrence, Kan., ahead of the No. 19 Jayhawks game vs. No. 17 TCU – a matchup of unbeaten Big 12 teams
GameDay’s second first-time trip this season, following Appalachian State in Week 3
Kansas football coach Lance Leipold and two-time national champion basketball coach Bill Self to join the show

ESPN’s College GameDay Built by The Home Depot travels to Lawrence, Kan., for the first time this weekend, ahead of the Week 6 matchup between the No. 19-ranked Jayhawks and No. 17 TCU. Kansas (5-0) is off to its best start since 2009 entering this game against the Big 12 rival Horned Frogs (4-0), who are also unbeaten. The show will be live from ‘The Hill’ on campus from 9 a.m. – noon ET (ESPN and ESPNU, ESPN App) on Saturday, Oct. 8, for the 428th road show.

Rece Davis leads the show in his eighth season as host and is joined at the desk by GameDay analysts Desmond Howard, Kirk Herbstreit, Lee Corso, Pat McAfee and David Pollack. Reporters Jen Lada, Gene Wojciechowski and newcomer Jess Sims, along with research producer Chris ‘The Bear’ Fallica and college football insider Pete Thamel, round out the GameDay crew for the season.

Following the visit to Appalachian State three weeks ago, this weekend marks GameDay’s second first-time trip of the season. With Kansas hosting GameDay for the first time, only seven Power 5 schools have yet to host the show – Cal, Duke, Illinois, Maryland, Rutgers, Syracuse and Virginia.

Scheduled Features & Highlights

The Imposter – One year ago, Texas A&M knocked off No. 1- ranked Alabama in one of the most memorable games of the 2021 season. The upset win may not have been the most unbelievable thing that happened at Kyle Field that day after a real-life case of, “Catch Me If You Can.”
Jalon’s Journey – According to one publication, he was the 129th-ranked quarterback in his recruiting class. Now Jalon Daniels finds himself in Heisman conversations and leading an undefeated Kansas team to unexpected places all while continuing to keep that chip on his shoulder that he says has helped get him to this point.

Kansas head football coach Lance Leipold will make a live appearance on GameDay, as will the Jayhawks’ two-time national champion men’s basketball coach Bill Self. Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian will join the show live from the field at the Cotton Bowl before the Longhorns face Oklahoma in the AT&T Red River Showdown (noon, ABC).

Scheduled Features & Highlights

The Imposter – One year ago, Texas A&M knocked off No. 1- ranked Alabama in one of the most memorable games of the 2021 season. The upset win may not have been the most unbelievable thing that happened at Kyle Field that day after a real-life case of, “Catch Me If You Can.”
Jalon’s Journey – According to one publication, he was the 129th-ranked quarterback in his recruiting class. Now Jalon Daniels finds himself in Heisman conversations and leading an undefeated Kansas team to unexpected places all while continuing to keep that chip on his shoulder that he says has helped get him to this point.

Fast Facts from ‘The Bear’

GameDay’s show from Kansas marks the 78th school to host the show
The show has been to one previous Kansas football game – its 2007 meeting against Missouri at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City
This will be the eighth show TCU has been involved with and the Horned Frogs are 3-1 as GameDay hosts, but 0-3 as the road team
GameDay host teams have won five of the six games this year and the lone loser, Texas, fell by only a point to Alabama
This past Wednesday, Oct. 5, marked 26 years to the day of Lee Corso’s first headgear when he picked Ohio State over Penn State, donning the Buckeyes’ Brutus

Through five weeks, GameDay is off to its best start since 2010, averaging 2,040,000 viewers each week – a 10% spike over the same point in 2021.

ESPN’s Expanded Digital Coverage
ESPN’s social and digital pre-pregame show, Countdown to GameDay Live, continues its sophomore season with the Week 6 visit to Kansas. Co-hosts Christine Williamson, Harry Douglas and Harry Lyles Jr. will be live from campus on Oct. 8, at 8:30 a.m. ET. Williamson chats with three six-year KU seniors – Caleb Sampson, Sam Burt and Jelani Arnold – about their journey from 0-9 to 5-0. The game is a homecoming of sorts for Williamson, who served as a Big 12 digital correspondent earlier in her career. The show is available across Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and the ESPN App.

Additional GameDay updates can be found via ESPN PR’s Twitter and College GameDay’s Twitter and details throughout the week can be found HERE and on College GameDay’s Hub HERE.

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